Immigration Bills

The bill would prevent Community Oriented Policing Services Program (COPS) funding from being used to uphold “sanctuary policies,” which prevent law enforcement officials in local municipalities from investigating immigration status or reporting immigration violations to Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE). COPS is important to city, tribal, state, and other local law enforcement agencies because it awards grants used to update technology, hire and train police officers, and develop crime fighting strategies. Please see S.169 for the Senate Companion legislation.

H.R. 6412, the Attracting the Best and Brightest Act, would add 50,000 new visas to a new employment-based priority category for aliens who have a master’s degree or higher in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM), from a U.S. institution of higher education. Visas that are unused by the end of each financial year continue past the end of the year. The Department of Homeland Security has to publicly release a monthly report with details regarding the visas awarded under the new category.

To prohibit the implementation of certain policies regarding the exercise of prosecutorial discretion by the Secretary of Homeland Security.

The bill would close certain loopholes exploited by companies who use H-2B unskilled labor visas instead of recruiting from the existing workforce. Specifically, it would require the Department of Labor to certify that prospective H-2B employers conduct a robust recruitment drive to find available United States workers, including advertising at job fairs, advertising with state and local recruitment agencies and nonprofit organizations, and advertising on local radio and the Internet.

The bill would amnesty certain illegal aliens under the pretense of increasing military readiness. More specifically, it would authorize the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to cancel removal proceedings for certain illegal aliens and adjust their standing to conditional lawful permanent resident (LPR) status for six years if they lived in the United States for five continuous years before the bill’s enactment.